Rainbow Warrior
WHAT, I wonder, is David Cameron’s agenda? Does he and his millionaire friends have any real grasp of the damage they are inflicting on people who have very little?
I have a poster in my office window which features pictures of Maria Miller – Minister for Disabled People (Ha!), Andrew Lansley, Paul Burstow and Ian Duncan-Smith. Its heading reads WANTED and underneath THE SLASH AND BURN GANG.
Between them, this likely lot are carefully dismantling a structure that has been put together over the past 60-odd years to try to catch those who slip through the net. They are meeting with some success in this initiative, regardless of occasional setbacks in the House of Lords.
I watch the Opposition in disbelief as they bleat away “Well, we’re generally in agreement with this, that or the other bit but we don’t like the way you’re carrying it out.” What the hell good does that do? Everyone seems to be happy sitting watching an entire welfare rights system and a National Health Service being slowly but surely taken apart.
Cameron’s crew are clever. They use banner headlines like the £26,000 cap on benefits to hide behind. After all, who in their right mind thinks that we should all receive that much for doing nothing? But hang on a minute. How many families do you know on that sort of benefit income?
The people who come to see me for help with appeals have been scraping an existence on such benefits as Employment Support Allowance – that’s all of £4,700 a year – or Disability Living Allowance – around £5,300 per annum – for which they have subsequently been deemed ineligible, after a dubious medical. All a long way from the fabled fantasy figure that the Slash and Burn Gang bandy about.
Of course you should be paid more for working than not. The trick, though, is to be able to find a job in the first place. Fifty per cent of disabled people who want to work are unemployed. Not by choice but because there’s nothing out there.
This government is unpicking the welfare state, piece by piece, on the pretext of attacking the scroungers of the world.
Well – they should switch their fire to the opposite end of the spectrum, where the real parasites sit – those who carefully avoid paying their taxes and award themselves huge bonuses in the process.
But you won’t do that, will you, Andrew, Maria, Paul and Ian – because, as your leader so frequently says, you’re all in this together.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 26 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
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Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
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